This disclosure relates generally to improving the quality and productivity of a product or process and more particularly to baseline modeling of a product or process.
Baseline modeling of a product or process generally provides an understanding of the performance of an “ideal” product or process over time. An engine is one type of product or process that baseline modeling is suitable for use. Engine baseline modeling has a multitude of uses including, but not limited to, determining when an engine performs out of specification, predicting when an engine failure will occur, detecting abnormal conditions, determining the quality of an engine and designing new engines. Typically, engine baseline models are developed from data gathered from thermodynamic cycle analyses and simulation. First, models of ideal values are created, indexed by variables such as altitude, temperature, power setting, and air speed. Once data from the normal operation of the engine is available, these models are updated by analyzing data corresponding to a particular model characteristic. An engineer then looks for data that are similar for the specified engine variables (e.g., altitude, temperature, power setting, air speed), groups the similar data, averages them for each variable and performs other operations as desired. The engineer then plots data for each of the variables. The plots provide interrelationship information between each of the engine variables, which the engineer uses to create tables of typical operation parameters the baseline model. These tables of parameters are used as the basis of comparison for engine operation. Differences from the baseline model may indicate engine faults or deterioration trends.
There are several problems associated with this type of engine baseline modeling. First, this type of engine baseline modeling is very labor intensive because the engineer has to review the data, find data that are similar, group and average the data, perform other desired operations on the data, plot the data and create tables. Another problem is that one engineer cannot readily reproduce an engine baseline model developed by another engineer because this process is very individualized. It is helpful if one engineer can reproduce the engine baseline model generated by another engineer to validate quality of the baseline. Another problem associated with this type of engine baseline model is that the resulting model does not provide a good “picture” of an engine operating outside normal conditions. Furthermore, this type of engine baseline modeling does not provide a measure of how good the developed model is.
In order to overcome the above problems, there is a need for an automated approach to engine baseline modeling that standardizes the process to improve reliability by minimizing human interventions.